


The Stroke of a Brush and a Brush of Lips

by Thali_Quinn



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bill does Baseball, Bottom!Richie, Comfort, Establishing relationships, F/M, Fluff, Grinding, I'm actually really proud of this one, It's set in the late 80's early 90's I swear, M/M, Richie is a cheerleader and no one can tell me otherwise, Richie's got neglectful parents man, Slight spoilers?, Soft Boys, This isn't actually a modern AU, a bit NSFW, after they "kill" IT, arrtttt, artist!richie, descriptive writing, do it bitch I dare you, fight me, it's a 'lil bit steamy, let them have that, or don't because yeah, seriously you can pull that headcanon out of my dead gay hands, set a few years after Georgie's death, sweetnesss, these boys just really love each other okay, they really love each other, top!Bill, wow I tag a lot sorry man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 18:51:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13530435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thali_Quinn/pseuds/Thali_Quinn
Summary: Bill's is infatuated with Richie's love of making art, and Richie's infatuated with him.





	The Stroke of a Brush and a Brush of Lips

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this has been done for a while but w/e, I'm busy yo. No time to post or even breathe, really. Hope you enjoy my gay sons because _damn_ did they enjoy each other.

He still wasn’t quite sure what had happened.

One moment, sophomore Richie Tozier was sitting on the beanbag in Bill’s room, headphones on and fully engrossed in his drawing, and then next he was on the floor, pinned down and panting into the mouth of Bill Denbrough while being snogged senseless.

His back was pressed uncomfortably into the spiral metal of his sketchbook, his glasses were cutting crescents into his cheeks; his legs were starting to cramp, and he was making out with  _ Bill Denbrough _ .

His parents weren’t good for much, but they did let him budget his own money, and while it led to a lot of ramen in place of meals, he was able to purchase his own art supplies. Richie had become fast friends with the owner of the only art shop in town--she said his trashmouth was charming--and she always saved him the best stuff, often selling it to him for half price or free of charge. 

Richie’s always loved making art. Always. It was the one thing that always shut him up, and the one thing that he could always turn to when even his motormouth couldn’t describe the way he was feeling--not that he talked about his feelings much, mind you. He’d stopped drawing for a little while, mostly because he was scared of people finding out about his habit, but after It, he wasn’t really scared of anything anymore--well. He was scared of  _ one _ thing, but it wasn’t his friends knowing he liked to  _ draw _ .

Bill, though--Bill knows about his artistic tendencies. He’d gone over to Richie’s house one day, letting himself in as he always did; they must have been thirteen or fourteen, only a matter of months before Georgie’s disappearance. Bill told him later that he’d yelled for Richie several times, but the music blaring from his headphones was too loud. Richie hadn’t realized he was there until he’d finished the painting he was working on.

Bill stands there in the doorway for a few moments, not registering what he’s seeing. There are so many things that just  _ don’t compute. _ He chooses to focus on the painting first, and that’s enough to calm him and slow his racing thoughts, reducing the complete sensory overload into the feeling of being just a  _ little _ overwhelmed. That too, eventually dissipates, until all he can process is the brilliance of brushstrokes and the incredible beauty of the boy placing them.

After a few moments, Bill is able to register that Richie is humming what sounds like “Come on Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners to himself, and Bill manages to rip his eyes from the canvas long enough to really take Richie in and  _ wow _ . He’s a  _ vision. _

At the moment his best friend arrived, R **i** chie was wearing a paint-splattered, once-blue T-shirt and baggy, black cotton pants drawn at the ankles--they were comfortable, and a souvenir from the last time his parents had remembered they had a child. He can’t remember quite where they’re from, but he thinks it’s Afghanistan or Iraq. His thick, dark curls are pulled back into a small bun, the kind you need two hair ties for, and there are several wet paint brushes stuck in it, dripping a bit and dried in places. A strand stubbornly curls in front of his face, but he’s too involved in his project to care now.

The easel he has is huge, so much so that he’d had to take it apart to fit it through the door, and he’d need a foot stool to reach the top of it--as it is, he can  _ just  _ reach the tip of his canvas. He’s facing away from the door to the only window in his room, and the sunlight dapples through the tree in front of it onto his freckled skin, casting a myriad of shadows on the walls of his room--painted a surprisingly soft green. Richie’s face is a creative mottley of paint; there is, for instance: a small speck of navy on his nose, a stretch of plum on his cheekbone, a dab of tangerine slashed across his chin, like he’d brushed the side of his palm against it He’s wrapped his headphones in the same plastic-looking material he’s using as a drop cloth to protect the red oak flooring, and the tip of his walkman peeks out from his waistband where his shirt’s been hiked up.

The painting he’s working on is of a boat dock at night. It’s a soft, beechy looking wood--maybe birch, who knows?--peeking from a sandy shore out into a rolling sea. A single, small sailboat with a soft coral sail bobs on the far side of it, a stark contrast against the churning blues, and the luxurious expanse of sky swirls and twists with stars. The moon glints silkily off the water, and the scene is bathed in its light.

It’s done in the impressionist style, though neither of them know it--beautiful, delicate strokes and swipes of a brush stilling time and immortalizing the quiet beauty of a sight devastatingly, dizzyingly enchanting. Viewing it is enough to lull one to sedation, and Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier is the one painting it.

Bill sits on Richie’s bed--it’s been pushed into the right corner by the room, beside the door, and he manages to settle in without Richie noticing--and for the next few hours simply watches the boy work his magic, transfixed by the sway and flow the craft seems to have over his best friend.

Neither of them know it, but it was then that Bill Denbrough fell deeply, helplessly in love with Richie Tozier. 

It’s another hour before Richie’s done. He lets out a happy sigh, satisfied with his work--the result is stunning, dynamic,  _ thriving _ , and while it’s calming and quiet, it’s so full of  _ life _ that Richie really thinks he outdid himself. He’s picking the paintbrushes out of his hair, headphones now resting on his neck--the music had stopped almost ten minutes ago--when Bill shifts on the mattress, and the tired old thing groans.  _ Loudly _ .

The paintbrushes he’d had in his hands clatter to the ground with dull, scattered thuds and Richie distractedly thinks it’s a good thing he’s still standing over the drop cloth, but that’s not what his attention’s on. 

“ _ How long have you been there?! _ ” he squeaks, casting hysterical looks between the canvas and Bill like the other boy might magically un-notice that there’s a 4’½” x 3’ painting on a ten-foot easel in the center of Richie’s relatively small room. Bill rolls his eyes, about to make some sarcastic comment about his theatrics when he registers the genuine  _ fear _ in his best friend’s eyes.

“A-buh-buh-bout an uh-hour. You’re ruh-ruh-really good, R-Richie,” he starts softly. “I di-di-didn’t wuh-want you to s-suh-suh-stop. I r-really luh-love the wuh-wuh-way you made e-e-every-everything look like it’s b-buh-bathed in mo-on light.” 

His smile is sweet and reassuring as Richie searches it for a hint of sarcasm, a wisp of a cruel trick he knows in his heart Bill’s not capable of. “I luh-luh-loved wuh-watching.” His resolve to believe Bill is mocking him crumbles, and with it comes his walls. He stands in the middle of his room, holding himself tightly in front of his best painting ever, mere feet from the most important person in his world and  _ bawls _ .

Alarmed, Bill shoots up and immediately wraps his arms around him, without a moment’s consideration for the fact that Richie is absolutely  _ drenched  _ in paint. A half hour measured in shaking sobs and tear stains passes before Richie finally tells him that he’d just never felt so  _ loved _ . There’s a funny look on his face as he says it, Bill thinks--almost as though he’s being asked a question--but he can’t dwell on it. He’s too busy begging the shorter boy for the painting.

It’s the last thing Richie sees, hanging above Bill’s bed, before his vision is intoxicatingly obscured by  _ Bill _ .

The boys weren’t really  _ hanging out _ per se; they hadn’t spoken for several hours, since they finished all of their homework. Rather, they were simply enjoying doing what they love in each other’s presence. Richie had been sketching and fleshing out a life-like drawing of their friends Ben and Bev for their one year anniversary--it was suitably cheesy, just the two of them looking into each others’ eyes with dorky smiles, Bev holding Ben’s face gently--and Bill had been writing… something at his desk. 

The beanbag Richie was sitting on happened to be a newer addition to Bill’s room, one that was undoubtedly added for him. It had replaced the table shrine to Bill’s action figures and the small chessboard he used to own. Bill and Georgie had selected them together, and the memory was too painful. Richie remembers the day he and Beverly had helped Bill carry the table out with the boxes of knick-knacks to the front lawn, setting them up. He remembers taping the sign to it, and he remembers shooing Bev off while Bill wept freely into his shoulder. Bill was braver than anyone Richie knew--he wasn’t afraid to cry.

Richie had been complaining for quite a while that the only places to sit in Bill’s room were on his bed or at his desk, especially once Bill found out about his drawing therapy--because that’s what it is for Richie.  _ Therapy _ . With a pencil or paints and a canvas to create on, Richie doesn’t need to run his mouth. He can leave it shut, take a breath, and listen to some rad tunes while he achieves what almost no one believes he’s capable of: tranquility.

His mind flashes back to the first time he brought some of his art supplies to Bill’s house--almost three years ago now, because Richie is turning 16 this year. It was charcoal, he recalls, and Bill bitched about him getting it on his white comforter--to which he retorted that if there’d been a better place to work on it (the desk was too uncomfortable) then he wouldn’t’ve gotten charcoal on it. Now, two years later, there was an obnoxiously pink bean bag with both Bill and Richie’s name on it in paint.

So Richie is drawing Ben and Bev being disgustingly cute, not even needing a reference he knows the losers’ faces so well, as “Should I Stay or Should I Go” starts playing on his walkman and his sketchbook is, quite suddenly, no longer in his hands.

Bill had been close to screaming for almost an hour now; he’d abandoned writing a long time ago in favor of watching Richie draw, but he knew the boy didn’t notice. His eyes used their time to soak in every detail of his best friend.

His dark, unruly curls, thick and tempting, were swept up as they always were at times like this in a fluffy bun, a few stubborn strands spilling out of their rubber container. He was sitting with his back against the wall, knees drawn up with his sketchbook balanced on them. He was wearing black shorts he’d stolen from Bev--a fact that was apparent in their length. Bill swallowed thickly when he looked at those shaved legs, toned from track and cheerleading--Richie always said that the girls made him shave, but had admitted to Bill in private he just liked them that way. The more Bill thought about it, the more he wondered if the athletic shorts Richie was wearing were the ones he had as his cheer uniform, because they definitely looked similar. Not that he made a habit of staring at Richie while he was cheering. 

_ [Note: That’s complete and utter bullshit.] _

The light gray wife beater he was wearing softened his coloring, and his black hoodie had slipped far enough off his shoulders for Bill to visually trace constellations out of his freckles. His fingers itched to ghost across the dotted skin, dragging his fingernails across the patterns he found. He briefly considered working on the love poem he’d been attempting, considered how inspired he now was, but watching Richie draw was far more important at the time.

Bill took in his thick lashes, the stars in his dark eyes; the way his glasses kept slipping down his nose, only to be pushed up absentmindedly with a hoodie-clad hand; the almost frantic then gentle motion of a pale hand clutching a soft-leaded pencil. Pretty, pretty pink lips mouthed the words to popular songs, and Bill whimpered out loud because Richie was so  _ fucking  _ un _ fair _ .

He was sick of the private smiles, sick of the inside jokes and ‘fake’ flirting, because he  _ still _ didn’t know if it was all in his head. Did the blushes and the giggles and the casual brushing of hands as they walk next to each other mean what he wanted them to? He was so desperate for an answer it physically  _ hurt _ , and Bill was  _ done. _ Steeling his nerve, he carefully grabbed Richie’s sketchbook and firmly pulled it out of his hand, taking the pencil with it, and closing it before dropping it on the fuschia bean bag. Richie looked up at him with dark, doll-like eyes.

“Wha-” he started, but Richie wasn’t allowed to finish--in one swift movement Bill had grabbed the artist’s drawing wrist in one hand, the back of his neck in the other, pulling him closer as he leant down and delivered a bruising kiss. Richie’s eyes grew impossibly wider, searching for Bill’s baby blues, but his best friend’s eyes were firmly shut, so he let them drift shut as he surrendered to the feeling. 

The way Bill kissed was merciless--he was intoxicating, distracting, and Richie couldn’t think of anything else if he tried. He’s all-encompassing, and after a few seconds, Richie starts to kiss back. He’s passionate and fervent, but Bill is still completely in charge--something he reminds Richie of the second the Trashmouth reaches his left hand up to softly brush Bill’s cheek. He feels the hand gripping his neck let go and slip away, and as he sinks deeper into the bean bag, his left hand, which had been tracing idle circles in the other boy’s face, is grabbed and roughly pinned above his head, just like his other one.

His eyes flutter open to see Bill’s are as well, and the intensity in them is enough for him to let out an embarrassing keening sound as the **y** abruptly shut again. He feels breathless, and while Richie never saw himself as the submissive type Bill was making him feel helpless in a way that made him never want to be in control again. He feels Bill’s legs shift to either side of his body, effectively straddling him, and he groans as the outline of Bill’s developing erection grinds against his own. Desperate for movement, he uses that Cheer Flexibility ™ to wrap his legs tightly around Bill’s hips and create that delicious friction.

Bill gasps, loosening his hold on Richie’s wrists just enough for Richie to pull them free and wind an arm around Bill’s neck, pulling him impossibly closer, and the other to tug at his hair needily. He’s giving almost as good as he’s getting for a second, until Bill rolls them over.

Their kiss isn’t broken as Richie is forced to release his legs from around the other boy as he finds himself the one now on top. He lets out an unsure noise, confused as to what Bill’s doing, until he’s  _ lifted up _ . How? Bill simply leans them forward so that he’s sitting up, allowing Richie to wrap his legs around him again, and, using his free hands to grab Richie by the ass,  _ stands _ .

Richie gasps as he’s hoisted up and Bill gives his rear a pinch in the process, and he thinks he knows what’s happening now and  _ yep, _ because he’s been all but thrown onto Bill’s bed and Bill’s lips aren’t on his like before, because now they’re kissing down to his neck. Richie tries to use the moment to catch his breath, but it proves impossible because Bill’s found a sweet spot, sucking at it so viciously the hickey he’s making will surely last weeks and Richie  _ mewls _ . 

His arms aren’t wrapped around Bill’s neck anymore, they’re clawing almost desperately at his back as he whimpers and pants at Bill’s ministrations. He’s fully hard now, can tell Bill is too, and his mind is fuzzy with euphoria--until it’s too much.

“Bill,” he squeaks, voice broken. He feels like he can’t breathe. Bill sucks another spot until it turns purple in response. He tugs at Bill’s shirt insistently.  _ “Bill _ ,” he groans, voice cracking because  _ fuck _ . “Bill I’m serious hold up,” he says, and the panic must’ve leaked into his voice enough to catch Bill’s attention because the boy immediately freezes, hands that had moved to Richie’s waist withdrawing as he swiftly sits up--he takes Richie with him on accident, because the boy never released his grip on his shirt, or loosened his legs as they clung to his hips. Richie stares down at him with wide eyes, and Bill begins to panic himself.

“Oh-Oh-Oh m-m-m-my g-god R-r-r-r-rICHIe, O-oh fffuck, I-I-I-I’m s-so sssorry,” he stammars out, so anxious he can barely speak. “I--I,” mercifully, Richie takes pity on them, because by the time Bill’s finished stuttering out his apology, he’s caught his breath, and kisses him fleetingly,  _ gently _ , because he can’t really handle anything else right now. Bill’s face contorts from gut-wrenching guilt to confusion and he stares up at Richie, mouth opening and closing, but unable to form words, or even make a sound.

“It’s not that,  _ Big Bill, _ ” he says in a low voice, grinding down into Bill’s admittedly impressive erection for emphasis--although it had flagged considerably when he’d heard the panic in Richie’s voice-- smiling salaciously and giving him a look that’s  _ filthy _ . “S’just a little much at once, ya know what I’m-a sayin’?” he says in a  _ terrible _ Al Capone accent. “Gotta go easy on ma poor heart, ey Billiam? Can’t just spring that on a guy, yeah?” even he seems to recognize it’s awful, because he drops it halfway through. 

His heart seizes almost painfully at the smile Bill gives him.

“O-oh. A-a-are you s-sure--” Bill starts to ask, probably aiming for something along the lines of “are you sure you want to do this or do you just feel bad for me” or something equally stupid, but Richie cuts him off by sliding his legs from where they are under him (they’re starting to lose circulation) and grating the curve of his ass along Bill’s dick, and that shuts him up pretty quick.

“Don’t ask stupid questions Billy,” he says, a little breathless all over again, because he honestly didn’t think the outline of Bill’s length pressing against him like that would feel as good as it did. His inhale is shaky, and his cheeks are flushed and have glasses-shaped marks dug into them, his hair is only half in its bun and all over the place--it’s Bill’s opinion that he’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life, and when Richie bends down and kisses him soft and sweet, he melts a little. His hands grip his hips, digging his thumbs into the flesh on either side of his pelvis, and Richie mutters something obscene against his lips.

A few moments later, Richie’s panting as he slowly and reluctantly slides off Bill, flopping on the bed next to him. He has to catch his breath all over again, and his hand finds Bill’s. He squeezes gently, before rising from the bed and stumbling to take care of his achingly hard cock.

Bill lays there and stares at the ceiling. His dick throbs almost painfully, and he’s honestly more turned on than he’s ever been in his life--all eleven inches stand at full attention--but it takes a backseat to the soft euphoria assaulting his senses. Then it’s not taking a backseat, and his attention is drawn fully to the almost foot-long tent in his pants. 

“Sh-shit,” he curses quietly, and stands on shaky legs, heading downstairs to the other bathroom to take care of his own. ‘ _ At least no one’s home _ ,’ he thinks to himself, then loses himself again in thoughts of the boy upstairs--the one he knows is thinking of him as he edges to sweet release as well.

Richie comes out of the bathroom before Bill does, and has a moment of panic before he remembers how hard Bill was--he probably just went to use the bathroom downstairs. Shrugging his insecurities off, he threw open Bill’s underwear drawer, grabbing himself a pair--he’d gotten precum all over his own--then grabbing himself one of Bill’s baseball tees, because he felt like it. He stripped and changed quickly, and Bill came in just as he finished tugging the white and blue shirt over his ass--which was pretty decently sized, dare he say so himself.

“Well hey Billy Boy,” he said with a shit-eating grin, and took a large amount of satisfaction in the way Bill blushed as a reaction to his outfit change.

“I-is the-the-that my shuh-shirt?” He asked, cheeks flaming and knowing the answer. Richie strut over to him, popping his hips with each movement like one of his cheer routines. He slid a finger down Bill’s chest and looked up through thick lashes into Bill’s big, blue eyes.

“It isn’t  _ not _ your shirt,” he said with a sly, flirtatious smile, before he snapped around and swaggered right back to the bed, sitting down criss-cross-applesauce. He looked up at Bill expectantly.

“So,” he started, looking suddenly very uncomfortable and not confident at all, “What was your ah,  _ goal, _ there Billiam?” He toyed with the hem of the baseball tee nervously, wiggling his toes and running another hand through his hair--he’d put it back up again, because this was a conversation he wanted to be able to  _ see _ for.

For a second, Bill genuinely had no idea what they were talking about, and he blamed Richie. The cutest boy in his world was  _ sitting on his bed _ and  _ wearing his clothes _ . How the hell was he supposed to concentrate?

“Wuh?” he asked distractedly, tracing the slope of Richie’s shoulders with his eyes, because his shirt was a bit big on him, and even though Richie was a bit stockier than Bill he had surprisingly narrow shoulders and he was a bit  _ curvy _ , even, and--

“I don’t know, Bill, what could I possibly be fucking talking about? Maybe you should look away from my ‘scandalous’ shoulders long enough to remember what you did to my  _ neck _ !” He gestured emphatically at it for emphasis and wow, Bill really did a number on his neck. Oh,  _ shit _ , Bill  _ really  _ did a  _ number  _ on his  _ neck _ .

“O-oH!” His voice crackled a little, and Richie was kind of mad at him for how sexy it sounded. “I-I uh, sh-should I not--” he started, only to be immediately cut off by Richie’s near violent protests. He quickly reached up and pulled Bill squarely on top of him in a manner that was less than gentle--they knocked foreheads, Bill hit his knee on the bed frame, and neither  _ cared  _ because this time it was  _ Richie _ kissing  _ Bill _ and if you had been able to ask either boy at that moment they’d tell you the world was spinning faster.

“No no no, Big Bill, I mean  _ what do you want with me _ ?” Richie said against Bill’s lips, their breath tangling intoxicatingly. He tugged at Bill’s shirt--the one  _ on _ the boy, not the one on  _ him _ \--as if to pull an answer out of him. Richie looked up at him, eyes dark and full of insecurity, and waited. Bill met melting chocolate with startling blue, and smiled warmly.

_ “Everything _ .”


End file.
